Touchy Issue for Barak: Peres's Role on His Team

By ETHAN BRONNER

Published: August 21, 1999

JERUSALEM, Aug. 20—
Meetings have taken place at the highest levels, including several with Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Memos have been drafted, rejected, amended. And despite assurances that a deal is imminent, tensions remain high six weeks after the formation of the new Israeli Government.

The issue is not peace with the Arabs. It is what to do with Shimon Peres.

Mr. Peres, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, architect of the Oslo framework for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel's longest-serving and best-known statesman, is the new Minister of Regional Cooperation. But his is a title in search of authority for a ministry that so far has no budget, no staff and no agreed functions.

To outsiders it may seem extraordinary that after his party triumphantly returned to power, the Israeli leader most associated with Middle East peace should find himself in a position that friends and foes call humiliating.

Equally surprising may be why Mr. Peres, who spent the last three years building an Institute for Peace that bears his name and who is hailed across much of the globe by leaders and adoring audiences as a visionary and hero, would submit to such indignities.

But to those who know Mr. Barak, a security-focused former general who never liked the Oslo accords and trusts almost no one, and Mr. Peres, a 76-year-old man with boundless energy and limited years, the situation is hardly surprising.

''For Barak to have Peres at a Cabinet meeting is like doing your homework with your father looking over your shoulder,'' said Akiva Eldar, a political columnist for the newspaper Haaretz. ''There is this quality to him which says, 'I've been there and I would have done it better.' But Barak feels he can't afford to have him causing trouble on the outside either.''

For Mr. Peres, the new Government is probably his last opportunity to build what he has called ''the new Middle East.''

''He is 76 and he feels he has three to four years to produce the dream of his life,'' observed Mira Avrech, a longtime friend. ''If he gets the authority he needs, he feels he can make it happen. If he doesn't, he will leave.''

Moshe Shahal, a lawyer, close friend of Mr. Peres and former Government minister, said: ''Barak will never agree to being upstaged. Peres is paying a toll by being humiliated, but if he can contribute to the country in this way, he will put up with the sacrifice. The peace process needs continuity.''

Mr. Peres says his aim was neither power nor prestige. In a telephone interview, he said that at their last meeting, on Thursday, he tried to explain to Mr. Barak that he wanted to revive international fund-raising conferences for the Palestinians, regional economic meetings and Israeli-Arab projects, all of which fell away in the three years when Benjamin Netanyahu was Prime Minister.

''I told Barak I am not trying to run the country,'' Mr. Peres said. ''I am not trying to grab the power of the Foreign Minister. My aim is to build things outside the country. With my experience and connections and imagination, I want to try to do about 10 or 15 different things. The process needs someone who represents the point of view of peace. I want to represent peace.''

The two are due to meet again on Sunday.

The threat that Mr. Peres might turn his back on Mr. Barak -- damaging the Prime Minister's reputation among the Arabs and the West as a potential peacemaker -- has been uttered often in the last week or two. It is clear that Mr. Barak is trying to find a way to prevent that.

But some who know Mr. Peres say the one thing he will not do is leave.

''Never write a political eulogy for Shimon Peres,'' said a senior official who has worked closely with him and spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''The more people write about the possibility of his resigning, the less inclined he is to do it.

''He is a very, very patient man, and he thinks Barak is going to crash at some point and then turn to him in need. And he is willing to put up with everything for that moment.''

Among the biggest problems, say those involved in the negotiations, is that to create Mr. Peres's ministry, Mr. Barak needs to carve pieces off others, notably the Foreign Ministry, headed by David Levy.

But Mr. Levy has no intention of giving up any of his powers, which are already limited by Mr. Barak's authoritarian style.

And the Finance Minister, Avraham Shohat, has publicly rejected a Peres request for a $125 million budget for the new ministry, saying that the ministry should serve a coordinating role but not an operational one.

For Nahum Barnea, the nation's most-read political analyst, the problem comes down to conflicting commitments, as he put in a recent column in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

''He promised Peres a senior ministry, he promised Levy a senior ministry and he promised himself that he wouldn't let Peres lead him into all sorts of arrangements that he dislikes,'' Mr. Barnea wrote. ''Barak knows that Peres's resignation has a price. It will damage the Government abroad and make its life more difficult inside. Peres is not just another minister. On the outside he can be a bitter adversary.''